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Interested in London Business School? Then why not attend some of the great student-led conferences such as the Global Energy Summit? This year, the GES committee opens its doors to prospective students so you can have your first real experience at LBS.

I attended the event in my first year and I very much enjoyed it. I learnt a lot about the energy sector from high calibre decision makers, and most importantly it was great to hear from different perspectives such as consulting, financing and corporate companies.

If you attend, you will also get a fantastic opportunity to meet students and alumni from different programmes of the school, and network with representatives of some of the school’s partner companies

Experiencing the school and its community is the best way to know LBS. I encourage you to register on the Global Energy Summit website. And if you do, make sure you contact the officers so we can arrange an appointment!

After a well deserved, much needed break to reconnect with friends and family from outside LBS, we are coming back to school with a refreshed mind.

Personally, I am still amazed with the amount I learned in the first term of my MBA. I learned about finance, strategy, management, accounting, statistics and modelling, economics… I learned both in and out of the class. I worked a lot and enjoyed it even more. And, importantly, I learned a great deal about myself.

The autumn term was particularly intense, but the good news is that we have done nearly half of the core courses. The spring term is lighter in terms of classes – leaving the necessary time for the recruiting season – and more focused on our individual choices, as we start to take electives.

The current week is dedicated to corporate partners presentations. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the companies who will be recruiting for summer internships and intensify our networking efforts. Over the next few weeks, other companies will come to campus and Career Services will be busy advising and coaching students to succeed in their internship hunt. And we will be busy too… LBS provides an amazing set of supporting resources to accelerate our careers, but of course, we still have to apply and interview ourselves!

One of the many great things about London Business School is the high quality events it organises. The 5th Global Healthcare Conference, held last week, was no exception. The healthcare club, supported by the school, did a remarkable job in putting together a very successful event.

The event featured exceptional keynote speakers: Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson&Johnson, and Lord Howe, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Health.

The theme was the Future of Healthcare, echoing our MBA class theme, the Future of Capitalism. Two panels looked at the underlying drivers and pressures and innovations in healthcare. Panellists from academia, biotech, pharma or payers contributed to a very high level discussion.

Here are the key takeways for me.

On the pressure side are an ageing population, unhealthy lifestyles and the ever increasing time and costs required to develop a new drug, hurting the traditional big pharma model. Certain diseases also pose resisting challenges, such as Alzheimer’s diseases (and more generally neurosciences), and thus represent opportunities to change paradigms.

As for the drivers, panellists talked about globalisation, meaning that new markets are open, requiring specific products. The growing importance of technology, used in quantified self and mobile health is another driver, and we will see a convergence of medicine and technology. The increasing availability of big data could be a very powerful tool to understand and control diseases, if we can work our way around ethical issues. Finally, another element of change is our approach to healthcare, more consumerist, with better informed and more demanding patients.

The second panel stressed out that innovation is no longer just about finding new molecules. Improved access and convergence of technology and clinic are as important field of innovation. Personalised medicine and prevention, through vaccines, education and lifestyle, are also key components of our future’s healthcare.

Collaboration is crucial to innovate, and the players are changing. Increased development times and high attrition rates force pharma companies to reconsider their model and collaborate more. Venture Capital is, understandably, more cautious in investing in early stage biotechnology firms, therefore there is a need for increased involvement of the public sector, as well as precompetitive consortia of pharma companies. This is what J&J aims to achieve in opening new biotechnology research centres.

Alex Gorsky reminded the audience that a better healthcare is a key driver in improving economy. Lord Howe concluded the evening by reaffirming that his aim for the UK is “to be the first place for life science innovation”.

Alex Gorsky also congratulated the LBS team who finished second in the global competition organised by the company in october, confirming the school’s strong credibility in healthcare.

Just five weeks into the program and it seems to me like ages. This time has been incredibly intense.
It all started with orientation week, which was in itself a memorable experience. The tone was set: the MBA is about stretching our comfort zone.

I have indeed felt a bit uncomfortable in class, but I have learnt so much. All the faculty members I have seen so far are inspiring and entertaining – great speakers. I found that I can even like finance and accounting.

I have met amazing people, and discovered that each of them has something to teach me. It is a very humbling experience to discover that all of your 406 classmates are so smart and have extraordinary stories to tell you.

I had to do many choices. I refrained myself from signing up everywhere – my favourite clubs kicked off on the same day anyway. The number of opportunities here is really incredible.
I can feel the pressure building up a bit. Besides academics and assignments, there are career services events, case competitions, club events, social events… and parties of course!

It feels strange to be back in school after so many years, but here it feels good, really.